N.H. Debate(s) Preview: The Mitt 'n' Rick Grinder

Seriously, isn't that what we're all hoping for this weekend, when the 10,987th and 10,988th of 12,322 scheduled debates between the Republican presidential contenders are held? First, ABC will have them all on stage and then, on Sunday, they will all appear on Meet The Press with David Gregory, onetime star of the short-lived Beltway reality show, Dancing With The Truly Revolting Bastards. I suspect the Saturday show will be the real visit to the Octagon for Willard Romney because whatever happens on Saturday likely will be all that they talk about on Sunday. Here's your drinking game for your Sunday morning mimosa: Take a sip every time Gregory begins a question with the phrase, "Last night, you said...." Drink the whole thing down every time he prefaces matters with the phrase, "Do you stand by...?" I promise you, if you play this game, you will be utterly sockless long before Pittsburgh and Tebow tee it up Sunday afternoon.

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(If straight whiskey is your Sunday-morning preference, book a suite at Betty Ford right now.)

It has been a very strange thing to behold. Ever since N. Leroy Gingrich demonstrated quite clearly on Tuesday night that his sole purpose in political life now is the removal of Willard's spleen with a melon baller, the gravely serious men and women of o' the pundit universe have nodded, gravely and seriously, and warned Gingrich not to pursue such an obviously suicidal course. I even heard somebody talk about the "damage" Gingrich might do to his legacy if he hoists the black flag and turns into the wind.

Wait a minute. Screw that.

Attack politics is Gingrich's legacy. It is his only material contribution to the political history of this country. Now, when he's got a semi-legitimate grievance — Willard's saturation bombing in Iowa and his sanctimonious distancing of himself from what was being done on his behalf — Gingrich is supposed to hold his fire because some idiot's sense of political civility might be bruised. The hell with that. Back in the day, the day being the decade of the 1990's, when Newt Gingrich went medieval on somebody's ass, he did it himself, up front, owning his viciousness like a bauble from Tiffany's. He was nasty, hopelessly shameless, comically megalomaniacal, and altogether about as healthy to the political dialogue as a case of the mange, but it was always him behind everything he said and did. (True, his GOPAC, and its official list of pejoratives, got a whole bunch of other hopeless omadhauns elected to Congress, but they all flew under Gingrich's brand, and we knew it.) This new world of anonymous corporate moneybag button men is as cowardly as it is destructive. Gingrich happens to be right in calling this out, even though he's a thoroughgoing hypocrite for having praised (in print) the Supreme Court decision that made his destruction possible.

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Other than Gingrich's descent back to the Dark Side, the biggest question on Saturday night is who will hammer Rick Santorum, Papist nutter and new GOP It Boy, where he is most vulnerable. Surprisingly, that's not his Papist nuttery, or his public devotion to laissez-faire that is every bit as opulently unhinged as Ron Paul's views on foreign policy are alleged to be. (Leave aside the obvious bullshit that Santorum is spewing there. If he's going to defend the right of insurance companies to gouge people, he should really re-read the Gospels before he opens his pious piehole again.) No, where he's really vulnerable is the fact that, while he was a senator, and especially once the people of Pennsylvania disemployed his ass, Santorum really has been a major-league 'ho. (Tin-drum alert.) He was the Senate liaison for the K Street Project, which sought to deregulate political corruption. Once he got the boot, he started working the luxury suites in earnest, and his former johns are leaving a whole lot of cash on the dresser these days. Check out some of the rest of his plush resume:

Santorum also received $239,000 as a contributor on Fox News, and $217,000 as a senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Post said. He also got $83,999 as a talk show host for Salem Radio, based in Camarillo, Calif.

Eighty-four grand?

Do you know one person who ever listened to Rick Santorum's talk show?

And nearly a quarter-mil from Fox? Two hundred G's-plus to be a "senior fellow." I would be a junior fellow, a jolly good fellow, or a hale- fellow-well-met for half that. Goddamn, am I ever in the wrong racket. Is it too late for me to start believing in really stupid shit so I can get a seat on this gravy train? Wow.

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The problem, of course, is that practically nobody in the Republican field is capable of calling out Santorum for being the major-league 'ho that he is. Gingrich isn't disposed to do it anyway and, given his own long history as a public grifter, he's hardly in a position to make the charge without having demons turn his tongue to fire and haul him off to hell. Willard certainly can't do it with a straight face. Jon Huntsman plausibly could make the play, but he's once again in the middle of one of his recurring bouts on invisibility, so that's a problem. Which leaves us with...

Dr. Paul.

Hmmm.

He's certainly capable of doing it. He's liable to say anything. (He remains my debate BFF for throwing Iran-Contra at Gingrich and Santorum when they began lusting for covert war against Iran.) He can do it without being vulnerable to charges of being a complete hypocrite. He has absolutely nothing to lose. He's not angling for a senior fellowship anywhere when this crashes and burns. He's not beholden to any of the people to whom the rest of them are beholding. And Santorum is the person standing most directly between him and Romney. If he can hit Santorum on all of this, and make it stick, then the rest of them will have to follow along, if not Saturday, then on Sunday with dancin' Dave. Of course, this will make Romney and Gingrich look like two-faced fools. Bonus!

And, just because I inflicted that Gregory-Rove dance number on y'all, I figure I owe you a few moments of sublime relief. Sing it, Mavis:

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